


the sound of her footsteps

by Hormonal_Trashbag



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Sleepwalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 09:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13995444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hormonal_Trashbag/pseuds/Hormonal_Trashbag
Summary: When he first saw her, Ben was certain it had to be a trick of the eye. Why was there a girl wandering the woods in the dead of night? His gaze flickered to his watch and it took him an addled moment to focus on its round face. It read2:14.“Hello?” he called out.





	the sound of her footsteps

**Author's Note:**

> [recommended listening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmSprAzDcgk)

_ Don't you mind, don't you mind, she'll be fine _

_ Tie a bell around her ankle _

_ Before she lays down at night _

_ And the sound of her footsteps _

_ Will wake me in time _

_ Don't you mind, don't you mind _

_ I'll watch over her _

_ As though she were mine _

 

The Dead Waltz, Radical Face

  
  


* * *

 

It was later than Ben usually stayed up. But the moon was out, high over the treetops and setting the small pathway that wound past his porch aglow with silver-spun light. A slight breeze ruffled the leaves above, shifting the patterned lace shadows that danced across the path. In the limp left hand hanging over the armrest of his rocking chair, he loosely clutched the neck of a whiskey bottle whose screw cap he lost early in the evening.

 

He stared into the night. It was of no matter; Ben would finish what little remained in the bottle before trudging up to bed. 

 

When he first saw her, Ben was certain it had to be a trick of the eye. Why was there a girl wandering the woods in the dead of night? His gaze flickered to his watch and it took him an addled moment to focus on its round face. It read  _ 2:14.  _

 

“Hello?” he called out.

 

She didn’t so much as glance in his direction, her bare feet leading her past his cabin and towards the gurgling river. Ben blinked at her, more and more astounded by the sight of her as he realized she wore a sleeping gown--did people still wear those? Its hem was at her ankles and caked with dirt.

 

Ben shook his head, nearly convinced she had to be a ghost of some kind.

 

No, that couldn’t be. A black silhouette followed her steps and Ben wasn’t sure a ghost could cast a shadow.

 

“Are you okay?” Ben asked, sitting straighter in his seat.

 

Still, she didn’t answer. He stood when the pathway took her out of sight. Leaving the whiskey on the front stoop, Ben stumbled after her in a stupor, his shuffling strides kicking up low clouds of dust.

 

It hadn’t rained in a few weeks so the river’s rushing roar had slowed to a purr, but that hardly meant it was safe to idle along the water’s edge in the dark. It was the last place a stranger to these woods should take a nighttime walk. Blearily, wobbling down the twisting path, Ben wondered how he had suddenly become responsible for this strange girl. He was too nice for his own good.

 

He came to a lurching halt when he caught sight of her once more. She had hiked up her gown to crouch beside the riverbed, long, dark hair falling down her back to dip into the mud. If she cared, she certainly didn’t show it.

 

“Miss,” he said, “you shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous.”

 

The girl ignored him, her soft voice humming along with the croaking choir of toads squatting somewhere nearby.

 

This was a whiskey dream, he told himself. He was already abed, safely tucked in and snoring into the silence of his empty home.

 

As she hummed to herself, her fingers twirled into a thin branch of an overhanging willow before she yanked sharply and it released with a snap. Bewildered, Ben watched her braid the strand of leaves into her hair, letting her gown sink into the mud.

 

A pixie, perhaps? 

 

He hadn’t believed in those since he was a boy. Grandma Paddy would always tell him to wear his coat inside-out, mischief dancing in her round, brown eyes as his mother complained fondly about  _ supernatural nonsense.  _

 

Giggles punctuated her humming as she clambered to her feet in the slippery mud, her arms reaching out at her sides as she made graceless pirouettes along the river. 

 

“Miss?” He tried again.

 

She continued her fumbling waltz, her steps gradually approaching the water. When she was up to her calves, it struck Ben that she wasn’t going to stop. She would be swept away by the current if she danced much deeper.

 

_ “Shit,”  _ he seethed to himself, hurrying down the grassy bank with great, loping stomps.

 

Ben sloshed into the river, his pants legs clinging to his skin unpleasantly. The water was to her waist when he finally reached her. He snatched her wrist and she turned to him at last, her eyes glassy and unfocused.

 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he growled.

 

The girl looked around herself, confusion morphing her delicate face. When she spoke, it was as if her tongue was too heavy in her mouth, each syllable slurring.

 

“The moon was calling to me. I couldn’t ignore her.”

 

Ben stared at her. She was  _ asleep.  _ He exhaled slowly, carefully leading her back to shore.

 

“Where are we going?” she asked.

 

“Somewhere you can’t drown yourself.”

 

Her responding laughter was warm and infectious--Ben had to resist the urge to smile at the tinkling sound of it. “I’ve never drowned before.”

 

He scowled at her from over his shoulder. “It only takes once.”

 

The girl nodded thoughtfully, allowing herself to be guided up the bank and to the path. He had no idea where she had started from, however, and he was in no state to drive her home regardless. 

 

She was trembling with cold by the time they reached his porch, her sleeping gown dripping and nearly translucent where it stuck to her. He pretended not to notice the pink points of her nipples showing through the thin material. At least her trek into the river had washed the mud from her gown.

 

Ben swaddled her in a towel and led her to the spare bedroom, leaving the rest to be dealt with in the morning, when he was sober.

 

* * *

 

This wasn’t the first time Rey stirred to find herself in an unfamiliar bed. Nor would it be the last.

 

Opening her eyes to come face-to-face with a sleeping man, however, was unexpected. It certainly explained why it seemed so hot. She stared at his narrow face, briefly admiring the plush lower lip of his parted mouth. Rey wondered if they had fucked during her episode or if she had just wandered out of the woods and into his bed without waking him. 

 

She was tempted to stay in the lethargic warmth of his bed but this was awkward enough as it was without her snuggling up to an attractive stranger. Sighing, Rey gently pulled away, careful not to jostle him in her retreat. Maybe if she was quiet enough, she could sneak out and avoid any and all uncomfortable conversations about her sleepwalking.

 

She made it halfway across the room before stepping on a creak in his wood floor. When Rey turned around to check on the man, a pair of dark, piercing eyes were looking back.

 

“The pixie wakes,” he mumbled.

 

She almost didn’t want to know what he meant by  _ pixie.  _ A weird pet name?

 

So long as he was awake, she might as well ask.

 

“Did we…” Rey cringed, forcing the question out, “...do anything last night?”

 

His expression flattened. “No.”

 

Why was  _ he  _ offended? She was the one that didn’t remember how she ended up in a strange man’s bed.

 

He sat, the blankets falling from his ridiculously chiseled chest. Dear lord, she could see his abs too. Did he have an eight pack?

 

“I put you in the spare room,” he said. “After chasing you to the river in the middle of the night and preventing your untimely death.” 

 

Embarrassment flooded her cheeks with heat. Rey fixed her eyes on the floor, fidgeting under his weighted gaze. 

 

“Oh.”

 

The man pushed back his comforter and threw his legs over the edge of the bed. 

 

“Well, um,” she floundered at the realization that he was only in a pair of briefs, “thank you…”

 

He gave her an odd look, lips pressed into a line. “You still have willow leaves in your hair.”

 

The leaves were on his bed, too. 

 

Mortified, she whirled about. “Thank you again, I’m sorry for the inconvenience--”

 

The bedsprings squeaked as he got to his feet, stopping her forced apology in its tracks. The room was small, and only seemed smaller when he approached her from behind. Rey could feel the heat of his body through the old sleeping gown her grandfather had lent her. It didn’t matter that a decade had passed since he lost her grandmother; half of his narrow closet was dedicated to a hanging line of dresses with no one to wear them.

 

“Don’t go,” he said, brushing past her to stalk into another room.

 

Rey didn’t bother looking away from his firm backside as he made broad steps, admiring how his briefs stretched with him like a second skin. If he didn’t want her to look, he should have gotten dressed.

 

She followed him into what appeared to be a sewing room, stunned to see the hulking man dig through a wicker basket of ribbon scraps. By the generous layering of dust, it was safe to assume this was a room generally left undisturbed.

 

He made a gruff motion towards a small chair with a Victorian buttoned back that needed to be reupholstered--it’s butter yellow velvet was frayed at the seams. Rey smoothed out the wrinkles of her gown as she nervously sat, watching with a peculiar blend of trepidation and excitement as the man stormed around the little room, sorting through all the bobs and ends of an experienced seamstress, the muscles bound to his shoulder blades rippling pleasantly beneath his pale skin with every box he lifted.

 

He barked a triumphant “Ah,  _ hah!” _

 

When he turned back to her, he was proudly holding a scrap of baby blue ribbon and a scuffed, golden cat bell. Her brows furrowed. Was he suggesting she...wear a kitty bell? He fed the ribbon through the ring attached to the bell with startling ease for a man with such large, clumsy looking hands.

 

Rey swallowed, her throat tight as he kneeled at her feet, gripping her right calf with the cradle of his warm, dry palm to set her heel on top of his thigh. His fingers grazed the sensitive skin that stretched over the fine bones of her ankle as he tied the ribbon to her with a flourish.

 

“I’ll hear you coming,” he told her, his tone entirely too serious.

 

He was trying to be reassuring but Rey couldn’t resist the niggling temptation to tease him. She pursed her lips. “You want to hear me come?”

 

She wasn’t sure she had ever seen someone’s face turn red so quickly.

 

“What? That’s not-- _ no!  _ I mean, you’re cute, so maybe I...” he trailed off as he realized what he was saying, the ends of his ears adorably pink where they poked out through wild, dark hair. 

 

Rey grinned, lifting her foot from his leg to wiggle her toes. The bell jangled with the slightest movement.  “Thank you, Mister Woodsman, I think you  _ will  _ hear me coming. Most men can’t say that until after they’ve bought me dinner.”

 

He looked at her squarely.

 

“I make a mean french toast.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely sure what this is...but it will remain a one-shot. Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
